For the love of $DIETY, people, the problem isn't latency, it's jitter

Ok, got my rant out. But man, it always bothers me (as someone who does network admin at an ISP) to hear people complain about their latency when they're lagging in an online game, when what they really mean is the jitter (inconsistent variations in latency). If I remember, I'll link in the Riot Games post on what they're doing for their NA servers, because I think it did a decent (if overly simplified) job of explaining The Lags for the masses.

That's not a terminology problem. That's a "two different words for two different concepts" problem, and you assuming tarunik was using the wrong word when in all likelihood he typed exactly what he meant to type.

How about, from the Enlightenment thread, using "signal" and "slot" instead of "event" and "handler"?

Extreme latency in comparison to other players (or the length of the reaction window for the PvE mob's attack), sure. The sub-300ms latency that exists on nearly all non-saturated high speed connections in first world countries? I sincerely doubt it.

As an anecdote in point, one complaint that's really easy to find on a League of Legends subreddit or fan site is the latency difference between NA west coast and NA east coast players. Apparently west coasters typically see latency in the 50-80ms range. I, a Midwesterner closer to the east than the west (Ohio), have 90-120ms latency. And apparently New York/New England players typically see 100-130 (before adjusting for ISP poor quality or in-home congestion). There's just no real difference there -- you're talking 0.05 seconds difference, less than you can even score a game winning basket in from an out-of-bounds play.

Though, in the US, 50 MB/mo is was probably a feasible data cap before the evil data-grubbing ISPs started charging overages before the saintly FCC stepped in and made that illegal even more likely to happen

Having not played or researched DOTA at all, beyond having a vague understanding that League is a "dumbed down" version of it, I presume that the primary difference in 70ms vs 150ms latency is ease of last-hitting the NPC creeps?

I wonder two things (and in true "weasely economist" fashion, I'm just gonna chuck these out here as "questions wherein it would be nice to see further research", because fuk if I know how to test for them)...

Is all else equal between the 70ms and the 150ms connection, in terms of connection consistency (jitter and packet loss)? To me, it would seem reasonable to presume that the 150ms connection is travelling through more networks (more interconnects, more hands) along the way than the 70ms connection. After all, the speed of light would suggest that "minimum" latency to get all the way around the world would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 140ms (light can make 7 laps around the world per second, in a vaccum), so unless the 150ms connection is literally halfway around the world (12,500 miles/20,000 km) further than the 70ms connection, there must be some cause other than distance that is increasing the latency.

More importantly, is the difference independent of skill? I would expect that "casual" players would see an improvement in their ability to last hit, because they're more dependent on reactive last hitting, rather than anticipating which minion to attack and when. By contrast, I would expect pro and top-tier players to play at basically the same level regardless of latency for any connection under 300ms. (Very cursory google-fu seems to suggest that various online tests of human reaction time get median reaction times around 250ms, and this site seems to estimate machine latency as adding 30ms to the results of their test, which would imply a human reaction time closer to 200ms than 250ms).

Again, if it wasn't obvious earlier in my post, I'm making speculative statements and ponderings, not attempting to claim some sort of fact.

There's not much to discuss, you just need to sit down and test Dota at 70ms and 150ms and, unless you're not very good at coordination, you'll instantly notice the delay between your actions and what the hero is doing. It affects everything, not just last hitting.

For reference, I'm a 3.2k player, which is about average for Dota 2 for people who are decent at videogames (it is technically above 75% of the playerbase, but most of the playerbase is terrible at videogames in general, as is probably the case with LoL too). For top players, for obvious reasons, the effect is a lot more noticeable and there have been issues between teams about server locations for online tournaments.

I know nothing of how LoL netcode works. Maybe they sort of compensate for that server-side, but I have no clue how that works to give everyone the same experience. But I'd say that saying there's no difference between 70ms and 150ms is quite preposterous.

I know nothing of how LoL netcode works. Maybe they sort of compensate for that server-side, but I have no clue how that works to give everyone the same experience. But I'd say that saying there's no difference between 70ms and 150ms is quite preposterous.

Without knowing how the netcode works, I don't think you can make any judgement at all about it. As far as you know, LoL only does 250ms time slices or something crazy.

So, rather than trading anecdotes all day (but flame wars are fun!), I decided to be unlazy and try to Google search for data to support my point. It seems that the data don't support my point for FPS type games (where studies suggest that there is a sharp break point in effectiveness at 100ms latency, as of Nov 2006 at least). But that study and a couple others suggest that some other game types such as Madden are less sensitive to symmetric latency -- they basically are defining latency as one way travel time rather than two way, apparently because Madden is P2P within the game -- especially with latency totals under 500ms.

This study seems to suggest that players who play more often ("expert" players) are much more likely to report poor satisfaction with the game at higher jitter levels, even though "these 'expert' gamers who are presumably the most sensitive to latency/jitter are also the most adept at compensating for impaired conditions as observed from their final game scores (which are not presented in this paper)."1

So, I guess I've found some data in support of my point 2 (more experienced players will be less effected by changes in latency and jitter), some data in support of your point (150ms jitter is noticeably worse than 70ms jitter, at least/especially for FPS games), and little data thus far at all in regard to whether latency or jitter matters more.

In League of Legends, at least, you're competing against the 0ms latency NPCs on your own team (your creeps, who are busy attacking their creeps).

Although your creeps attack in an anticipatable pattern, with fairly small damage packets, hence my theory that professional-grade players should see less relative decrease in their ability to last hit than casual-grade players under 150ms latency conditions.

Without knowing how the netcode works, I don't think you can make any judgement at all about it. As far as you know, LoL only does 250ms time slices or something crazy.

I never said anything about how LoL works. I was disputing the claim that latency under 300ms doesn't matter unless you're playing an FPS or something, or saying that

there's no real difference there -- you're talking 0.05 seconds difference, less than you can even score a game winning basket in from an out-of-bounds play.

is all complete bullshit. If you sit down and play a game of Dota 2, there's a world of difference between 150ms and 70ms.

Maybe LoL compensates for lag, I have no clue. In Dota 2 you can't compensate because there can be no inaccuracies in the flow of the game, so your character input (right clicking to move, using your skills) gets the short stick so that everything on the server (character positions and spell usage) gets synchronized correctly. As an addendum, it's also far easier to do it in a game like Dota given that pathfinding takes care of most of the issues for player input, as opposed to an FPS where the player has full 3D input on their movement, which I guess is the reason why latency generally handled more lazily in FPSs.

So, rather than trading anecdotes all day (but flame wars are fun!), I decided to be unlazy and try to Google search for data to support my point. It seems that the data don't support my point for FPS type games (where studies suggest that there is a sharp break point in effectiveness at 100ms latency, as of Nov 2006 at least). But that study and a couple others suggest that some other game types such as Madden are less sensitive to symmetric latency -- they basically are defining latency as one way travel time rather than two way, apparently because Madden is P2P within the game -- especially with latency totals under 500ms.

Dude, look for all the studies you want, or just download Dota and try different servers. There's not much to argue in this respect, this is something that 100% of the playerbase that knows something about videogames understands of Dota. And that's not even getting into FPSs, which I had the displeasure to play at >150ms latencies on a regular basis due to where I live.

We had a salesman call the devs directly (How he got our number we'll never know) and try and convince us how great cloud storage would be for development projects. How we needed it. HOW WE REALLY NEEDED IT LIKE A MAN DYING OF THIRST NEEDS WATER. I asked him to explain it, his reasoning was that it was secure, had multiple backups, always-on access, etc. All the usual bollocks.

He actually said "You need this like a man dying of thirst needs water". I eventually just hung up.

This game is already easy mode with the enormous reversal window... and you want MORE?

Two frame links are possible possible to hit very consistently with enough time to practice. The majority of one frame links can be plinked, turning them into two frame links. Jeez with a 5 frame window on all the combos, you could just smack your fist against the board and would probably be on par with the pros execution-wise.

Your buttumptionspeculative statement that 80ms wouldn't matter to a pro gamer is way off.

One, two, one two three, one, one two three, one, one two three four five.

My understanding of Street Fighter combos is that you're comboing with yourself. Meaning that, for completing combos once you got the first move off, consistent 200ms latency (with 0 jitter) wouldn't make completing combos any more difficult than consistent 10ms latency. So I think your example is poorly chosen, and that you picked an example case where jitter matters more than latency.

However, I will concede that getting the initial move off would feel/be less consistent in a higher latency situation, since you'd be more likely to get interrupted by an opponent's move you hadn't seen when you tried to start the combo.

Dude, fighting games aren't only about comboing, they're about knowing yours and your oponent's neutral moveset and exploit the frame differences between them. If you have a 200ms delay on your input, you're at a major disadvantage.

You seem to have no clue of how videogames networking works. This is something you learn by actually playing the games. I suggest you do the same instead of quoting random studies.

Yeah, all I was getting at there was about the order of magnitude of what constitutes noticeable changes in timing. I mean, I am by no means a pro gamer, but from what I hear about people who are, even a single frame change in a character's animation or response time can make all the difference between viable and worthless trash.

Anyway, what you're saying about jitter does make sense; I'm not trying to refute your central thesis here. It's just that some of the conclusions you seem to be drawing are inconsistent with what I've gathered from seeing people talk about that kind of stuff. Like, you seemed to be saying that people don't know the difference between jitter and latency, but maybe what you should have said instead is that you hate it when people refer to ‘jitter’ as ‘lag spikes’, or whatever they're calling it these days. Because you can bet your ass the pros know what's going on in their game, timing-wise.

One, two, one two three, one, one two three, one, one two three four five.

Do you play many competitive videogames over the internet? Because it definitely sounds like you don't.

Look, I don't care about whatever random study thinks about networking in fucking Madden. If you sit down and play Street Fighter over the internet on 200ms ping, you're going to have a shit time. This is undeniable and anyone who plays these games even remotely seriously knows it.

I just thought it was funny that you said someone should test something before thinking about it.

Well, before formulating any theories, the least you could do is record your own empiric experiences with the subject matter. That will prevent you from making asinine statements such as "latency doesn't matter in videogames, it's just lag spikes that do".

Yes, but that's not why I asked; I asked in order to point out a major flaw in your argument. Playing the games will teach you the practical aspects (maybe), but you won't develop a proper technical understanding unless you do some background reading too. And part of that is the studies you so readily dismiss.